Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a method to generate a tomographic image, particularly in a magnetic resonance tomography examination or a computed tomography examination, and especially for generating a tomographic image of cartilaginous tissue.
Description of the Prior Art
Joint pain and particularly back pain, for example in the neck, chest and lumbar region, are a main cause for incapacity to work and occupational disability in our society. Millions of people are affected by it, resulting in a loss of working hours and limitations in activity. The major problems are the current limitations in diagnosis of primarily the biomechanical structures and functions of the intervertebral discs. There is a high rate of up to 80% of patients being incorrectly diagnosed with having back pain although they are really without pain symptoms and patients being incorrectly diagnosed with having no back pain although they really do have back pain. For this reason physicians need to be supported in order to be able to improve their diagnosis and a corresponding therapy.
At present this problem is solved in a purely symptomatic context. The primary elements of the therapeutic concept involve the subjective degree of pain and neurological symptoms, up to complete paresis. Because of this symptom-based diagnosis and a lack of objective parameters to classify an illness and a corresponding therapy, the literature describes a variety of therapy concepts with different results. An image-based diagnosis using magnetic resonance imaging and computer tomography is a common aid to confirm and describe more precisely a symptom-based diagnosis, but because of the high rate of false positive and false negative diagnoses no standardized practical rule can be defined.